The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-10-21
NOS.

river so stirred his sympathies that he
threw up his belief in the goodness of God
Others have gone into skepticism from
a natural persistence in asking the reason
why. They have been fearfully stabbed
of the Interrogation point. There are go
many things they can not get explained
They can not understand the Trinity, OF
how God can be sovereign and yet man q
free agent. Neither can 1.
They say; 'I don't understand why a
good God should have let sin come into the
world" Neither do L. You say: "Why
was that child started in life with such
disadvantages, while others have all
physical and mental equipment" can
not tell. They go outIof church on Easter
morning and say: ''That doctrine Of the
resurrection confounded me-" SO it is to
me a mystery beyond unravelment. I
understand all the processes by which
men get into the dark. know them all.
l have travelled with burning feet that
blistered way.
The first word that children learn to ut
ter is generally papa or mamma. think
the first word 1 ever uttered was "Whyp
l know what it is to have q hundred mid
nights pour their darkness into one hour.
Such men are not to be scofed at,
but helped. Turn your back upon
drowning man, when you have the
rope with which to pull him ashore, and
let that woman in the third story OF a
house perish in the flames, when you have
a ladder with which to help her out and
help her down, rather than turn your
| back scofftngly on a skeptic whose soul is
in more peril than the bodies of those
other endangered ones possibly can be-
| Oh, skepticism is dark land. There are
men in this house who would give thou
sand worlds if they possessed them, to get
| back to the placid faith Of their fathers
and mothers, and it is our place to help
them, and we may help them; never
through their heads, but always through
their hearts. These skeptics when
brought to Jesus, will be nightly affected,
far more so than those who never exam
ined the evidences of Christianity.
Again, there is a field of usefulness, but
little touched, occupied by those who are
astray in their habits. All northern Ma
tions, like those of North America, and
England, and Scotland, that is, in the
colder climates, are devastated by alco-
holism. They take the fire to keep up the
warmth In southern countries, like
Arabia and Spain, the blood is so they are
| not tempted to fiery liquids.
The Great Roman armies never drank
| any thing stronger than water tinged
with vinegar, but under our northern cli-
mate the temptation to heating stimulants
| is most mighty, and millions succumb.
When a mans habits go wrong the
church drops him, the social circle drops
him, good influences drop him, we oil drop
him. OF all the men who get Off the track
but few ever get on again. Near my sum-
mer residence there is a life-saving sta
tion on the beach. There are all the ropes
and rockets, the boats, the machinery, for
getting people off shipwrecks. Summer
| before last I saw there fifteen OF twenty
| men who were breakfasting after having
| just escaped with their lives and nothing
more. Up and down our coasts are built
these useful structures, and the mariners
| know it, and they feel that if they
are driven into the breakers there
| will be apt from shore to come "a
rescue. The churches of God ought TO
be so many Iife-saving stations, not so
| much TO help those who are In smooth
waters, but those who have been ship
wrecked. Come, let us run out the life
| boats And who will man themf We do
not preach enough to such men; we have
not enough faith in their release. Alas, III
| when they come TO hear us, we are labori-
| ously trying to show the difference be-
| tween Sublapsarianism and Supraiapsar-
| ianism, while they have thousand vipers
! Of remorse and despair cOiling around and
! biting their immortal spirits. The church
| is not chiefly for goodish sort of men whose
proclivities are all right, and who
could get TO Heaven praying
and singing in their own
homes. 1t is on the beach TO help the
drowning. Those bad cases are the cases
that God likes to take hold Of. He can
save big sinner as well as "a small sinner,
and when a man calls earnestly TO God
for help he will go out to deliver such
| one. IL it were necessary God would
| come down from the sky, followed by all
| the artillery of Heaven and million
de IaN
dred such redeemed men in each of your
churches and nothing could stand before
them, for such men are generally warm
hearted and enthusiastic. No formal
prayer then. No heartless singing thsn4
No cold conventionalisms then.
Furthermore, the destitute children Of
the street offer a field of work compare.
lively unoccupied. The uncared- for chill
dren are in the majority in Brooklyn and
most of our cities. When they grow up, IL
unreformed, they will outvoto your chill
dren, and they will govern your children.
The whisky ring will hatch out other
whisky rings, and grog-shops will kill
with their horrid stencil public sobriety,
unless the Church of God rises up with
Outstretched arms and enfolds this
dying population in her bosom. Public
schools can not do It. Art galleries can not
do 10. Blackwel's Island can not do IL.
Almshouses can not do it. New York
Tombs and Rayman Street Jail can not do
It. Sing Sing can not do Il. Church Of
God, wake up to your magnificent mis-
sionl You can do 10. Get somewhere,
somehow to work.
The Prussian cavalry mount by putting
their right foot into the stirrup. I don't
care how you mount your war charger, II
you only get into this battle for God, and
get there soon, right stirrup, or left stir
~, Ell af al Tho Il
/ fields are all around US, and why should
we build on another mans founda-
tion? That God has called this
Church to especial work no one can
doubt. It's history has been miraculous
God has helped US at every step, and
though the wheels of it's history have made
many revolutions, they have all been for.
ward, and never backward, and now, with
our borders enlarged and with important
reinforcements, we start on a new cam
paign. At Sharon Springs, nineteen years
ago, walking In the park, asked God n he
had any particular work for mo to do ta
make it plain, and I would do Il. He re-
vealed to me the style Of church we were
to have, and he revealed to me the archi-
lecture, and he revealed to me the style of
worship, and he revealed TO me my work
and, as far as in my Ignorance and
weakness l have seen the right way,
have tried 70 walk in Il. We decided that
we wanted a soul-sayinR church, and it has
been an almost constant outpouring OF
the Holy Ghost. Ye powers Of darkness, ye
devils in hell, we mean to snatch from
your dominions other multitudes, II God
will help us. / have heard of what was
called the ''thundering legion" It was ir
179, part of the Roman army TO whic1
some Christians belonged, and their pray
ers, IL was said, were answered by thuns
der and lightning and hail and tempest
which overthrow an invading army and
saved the empire. And 1 would tc
God that this ch urch may
ha eo mighty ia t4ravar aud